


Starved

by ImpulsivelyBlue



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Metaphors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-08
Updated: 2015-03-08
Packaged: 2018-03-16 15:32:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3493547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImpulsivelyBlue/pseuds/ImpulsivelyBlue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry thinks that the best way to kill someone is to starve them. </p><p>Think for a moment if you will, think of a boy, a little boy with scruffy hair and searching green eyes that never learns what it’s like, not to starve. </p><p>He doesn’t understand what it’s like, to not starve is to not exist. Because he is starved of so many things. </p><p>Love. </p><p>Hope. </p><p>Wonder. </p><p>Truth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Starved

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Harry thinks that the best way to kill someone is to starve them. Think for a moment if you will, think of a boy, a little boy with scruffy hair and searching green eyes that never learns what it’s like, not to starve. He doesn’t understand what it’s like, to not starve is to not exist. Because he is starved of so many things. Love. Hope. Wonder. Truth.

Now imagine that little boy again, yes with the scruffy hair and the green eyes that are searching yet never seeing, never finding. Imagine for a moment what that was like, to live every single day of your existence so hungry, so starved. Imagine never knowing what it would be like to be filled with wonder and magic and love and hope and all the things that you hold on to your life for.

Imagine this little boy with the green, green eyes not knowing what these things, these basic little things, these feelings and emotions; imagine not knowing how to live.

Imagine this little boy once more, still little and under fed but seeing what he couldn’t before. Imagine this little boy with scruffier hair in a nice house, a normal house, a house he has no place in. Just pause for a moment and think of the family that live in this house, this normal, normal, normal, boring family that know how to live and live and live as they do where hunger is a foreign concept that they cannot grasp and there are so many things this little boy wants now, he watched then and he learns of greed and satisfaction.

He learns of the concept but never the feeling because he is never full, he is always hungry but he wants.

He wants and he would settle just for the smallest amount, a crumb, a smile. He promises himself that that would be enough, that would be all he needed but he also sees the greed that these crumbs and those smiles brings and he thinks maybe, maybe it was be better to starve. 

And as the child grows up, still small and still learning the boring people of the house grow up and out and let their greed corrupt them and sill them with a want that they always manage to only just fulfil, while he grows small and quiet. They are the weeds that wrap themselves around the beautiful flowers and choke them just for that little bit of room, that little sip of water and he is the tree that stands for an age even when the leaves fall and branches break, yet slowly he grows.

This child grows and he does not grow not knowing what it is like to hurt. The hunger huts. The greed hurts. They are familiar hurts, an old ache that will never settle yet there are times when he breaks and he falls and is punished. There are times when the boring boring greedy people let go just for a moment and he hurt hurt hurts. But he never stops.

Because he does not know what it is like to be without pain, the pain tells him he is real, the pain tells him he is missing something, the pain tells him there is something to find. Pain is a familiar friend, just as much as the hunger scratching and clawing in his brain and in his stomach is. There is a gaping wound left in him that he hesitates to fill, only to discover that he cannot. The boy is starving, the boy is dying.

The boy does not know how the pain-hunger-misery would end, he doesn’t even know if there is anyone that could give him the end. He is dying, that is certain. He is dying and he is still empty and waiting, not knowing how he should have been raised full of love and warmth and magic.

He passes through his existence of work, work, work, work- you little ungrateful freak how dare yo- he passes his days in silence and pain. He knows he’s dying and just for a moment he thinks that that is what he is missing, but then the pain pain misery is sharp in his mind and he exists only to hurt and oh- oh.

He sees something, he sees something and it is warm and home and it is the beginning, and it Dursley you great muggle- you’re a wizard- we’re leaving for a place you’re parents wanted you to go Harry-

Once he started to learn of this he couldn’t stop. He learnt about a new world a better world, a warm world. He learnt about his parents and love and sacrifice and betrayal. He learnt about truths and secrets and once he started he simply couldn’t stop because this was it- this is what he waited for- this was all he wanted, all he needed. And there was so much more.

Sometimes that little boy, Harry, thought that this is what was going to kill him.

But he doesn't stop; he’ll never stop because he just can't get enough of it. He doesn’t stop and he isn't used to it, his body, so small and starved and broken doesn't know how to handle it all.

He learnt and learnt and learnt. Taking and taking and taking, long after he made himself ill of it all. He learnt new things and old things, he learnt of himself and he learnt how to satisfy his hunger. Almost. Because it could never truly be enough for a child who was dying, who knew he was dying, who felt the hunger and the pain.

It would never be enough.

So, Harry thought, the best way to kill someone is to starve them. Starve them until they’re desperate and miserable and just don’t know when there wasn’t pain. Starve them until they will accept anything you give them and keep going. Starve them until they will take anything, anything.

Starve them of hopes and dreams and happy feelings and love. Starve them of hope and wonder and truth. Starve them until they are so hungry, so so hungry that they’d rush straight to their deaths for you, there’d rush to their deaths just for a crumb, a smile.

Starve them until they’d do anything to satisfy the hunger that clawed at their minds and their stomachs.

That, Harry thought, was how you kill someone.

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End file.
